Why It’s Needed

All of us – especially women, babies, and elders – are paying a high price for the status quo.

For most U.S. workers, access to paid leave depends on employer policies. Even with the growing number of city and state paid sick days laws,[1] 39% of private sector workers get no paid sick leave and just 12% receive paid family leave. Among the lowest wage workers – disproportionately women of all races and men of color – 78% lack sick leave and 97% lack paid family leave.[2]

Federal policy provides only 12 weeks of unpaid leave for a new baby or the serious health condition of a worker or family member. 41% aren’t even covered because their employer has fewer than 50 employees, or they haven’t worked a full year or enough hours for their employer.[3]

Public health experts have found strong links between expanding paid maternity leave and decreasing infant deaths.[4] The U.S. is the only developed economy without universal paid maternity leave – and ranked 30th in infant deaths in 2013.[5] If Washington had the same infant death rate as British Columbia (where families get a full year of paid parental leave), two fewer infants would die each week in our state, a 23% reduction.[6]

Now, new parents cobble together time to nurture their precious newborn from saved up vacation and sick leave – if they have it – and whatever unpaid leave they can afford.[7] Despite the high cost of infant childcare and pediatricians’ recommendations to breastfeed exclusively for six months, 1 in 4 U.S. women go back to work within 2 weeks of childbirth.[8]

18% of Washington voters over age 45 provide unpaid care for an adult loved one, and 39% have in the past. The majority of care givers are women, and 60% report feeling stressed trying to balance work and family, according to a 2016 AARP poll.[9] These numbers will increase as our population ages.

Longer parental leaves improve child and maternal health and increase parental involvement.[10] In the states with paid family and medical leave, new moms are twice as likely to take paid leave as in other states. Paid leave triples for low-income women. Maternity leaves average 22 days longer in these states, new moms and babies are healthier, and fathers take more leave, too.[11]

Women with paid family leave are more likely to be employed one year post-birth[12] and report 9% higher wages than women without leave, controlling for demographics and job characteristics.[13] Use of public assistance by both new mothers and fathers drops when they have paid leave.[14]

Children, elders, and people of all ages recover faster from serious health conditions and have fewer complications and re-hospitalizations when loved ones are present, receive doctor’s instructions, and can assist with follow up care.[15]